[jbolty]

Originally Posted by ApS

The article hits a NYT paywall. Would a subscriber kindly copy the text?

Perhaps the "win" was to inoculate the state against changing Lake Winnipesaukee's established and extensive wooden-spar system of navigation. (?)

Comes up for me, and I sure don't subscribe. Can't believe this was over 40 years ago. It was a huge deal at the time and of course back then Mel Thompson took Live Free or Die pretty seriously

CONCORD, N.H., April 16The United States is going to keep its hands off Lake Winnipesaukee, Lake Winnisquam and the Merrimack River.

In the face of a storm of protest from a rare united front of New Hampshire's elected officials, Democrats and Republicans, boat owners and conservationists, the Coast Guard has backed down from an attempt to take over the state's recreational lakes and major river.

The nautical saga began last September, when the Coast Guard informed Gov. Meidrim Thomson that it had determined that the pcipular lakes were “navigable waters” and thus the Coast Guard was required to take jurisdiction over them.

The conservative Republican Governor was irate when he read the Coast Guard letter and an accompanying 10‐page memorandum explaining how the takeover would be accomplished.


“A blatant usurpation of the sovereignty of our state,” the Governor declared in December in a letter to Secretary of Transportation William T. Coleman, whose department includes the Coast Guard.

Boat Safety Control

The Coast Guard historically exercises control over commercial waterways, but the crux of the situation here is the Federal Boat Safety Act of 1971. This act sets up Federal uniform standards for pleasure boat registration and such safety features as the number and design of life preservers that must be carried.


Under the law, boats with the proper Coast Guard registration number on their bow have access to all waters in the country under Coast Guard jurisdiction, and the states if they have a standard Model Boat Safety Act and provide enforcement, collect the registration fees and keep part of them.

New Hampshire and Washington are the only states that do not participate in the program.

Instead., New Hampshire has its own boat registration system, and out‐of‐state residents even if they have the Coast Guard registration numbers, must buy the $6.50 state license plate and have a local inspection before launching their craft in the Granite State waters.

Last year, New Hampshire took in more than $260,000 in registration fees from the owners of 45,425 boats, many of them summer visitors.


There were estimates that the state might lose from $70,000 to $120,000 from the Federal takeover. On the other hand, the Coast Guard contended that the state might gain as much as $100,000 by cooperating with the Federal Government program.

Protests by Opponents

The state Legislature passed a resolution condemning “the unwarranted usurpation of sovereign state's rights.”

Angry meetings were held by boat salesmen, owners and even conservationists who wanted to protect new state laws to help clean up the lakes.

In Washington, the state's two United States Representatives, James C. Cleveland, Republican, and Norman E. D'Amours, a Democrat, drafted legislation to remove New Hampshire waters from Coast Gurad jurisdiction. Mr. Cleveland said that the takeover would deprive his state of revenue from out‐of‐state boaters.

The two Democratic Senators, Thomas J, McIntyre and John Durkin, drew up a similar bill. Mr. Durkin said that it was the result of “never‐ending frustrations dealing with faceless, mindless bureaucrat operating in concrete and marble, palaces in Washington.”

The issue, which was apparently becoming somewhat of an embarrassment for the Ford Administration, reached a decisive point on March 29, when New Hampshire's Attorney Gen. eral, David H. Souter, met with Secretary Coleman and his aides in Washington.

The central legal definition of whether the waters are “navigable” for Federal purposes is whether they can be used in interstate or foreign commerce. Mr. Souter recalled in a telephone interview that he had disputed the Coast Guard's contention that they were thus navigable and contended that the Coast Guard had used a false standard of retroactivity When it cited a 1796 state charter for improvements that had never been made on the waterways to contend they had commercial possibilities.

Shortly after the meeting Secretary Coleman decided that the Coast Guard claims to jurisdiction would be withdrawn.